Friday, November 27, 2015

Is This Not Appalling Scholarship?

From the September 2012 E-Block.

***

I've taken it upon myself, as editor and primary
author of Shattering the Christ Myth, to keep abreast of any new works
on the subject of Jesus' existence, and produce any needed replies. The
volume Is This Not the Carpenter? (INC) edited by Thomas Thompson
and Thomas Verenna, represents a mixed-interest entry into the subject
matter, with contributors ranging from the moderate (Lester Grabbe, Jim
West) to the fringe lunatic (Robert Price, James Crossley, Thompson
himself). A reader generously donated the volume (which costs nearly
$100!) so well devote some entries to a somewhat selective examination.
As it turns out, many of the chapters do not side with the Christ-myth
thesis at all.

The introduction is credited to Thompson and Verenna, but based
on the content is clearly mostly Thompson at work (whether directly, or
indirectly), so I'll save some time by just referring to Thompson as
author. I'd have to say the intro typifies a certain naivete found in
fringe scholarship, one in which absurd ideas are concocted to explain
textual phenomena because far more prosaic and contextualized
interpretations are either ignored, or more likely, are off the fringe
writers' academic radar screen. Some time ago I reviewed Thompson's Messiah Myth
(MM -- link below) and the introduction to INC repeats the same
fallacious patterns, so that if you read my review, you have a
refutation of the introduction in principle. But you might want them in
terms of specifics, so let's have a look at some of those.
The focus is on the story of Jesus healing in his hometown (Mark
6:1-6 and variants). As with MM, Thompson excels in esoteric readings
that quite frankly seem to have been pulled out of thin air. Thompson's
ignorance of more prosaic explanations emerges from the get-go; he is
on from the start about an alleged "leifmotif of hands" in Mark's
version (which is excessive in and of itself, as mark mentions "hands"
only twice in the account), which he goes on to connect to "the figure
of the Greek god Hephaestus, who was the god of craftsmen, who himself
had forged the magnificent equipment of the gods...Does the question
about the carpenter identify Jesus as Jewish Hephaestus?"
Let's try for something more contextual and
prosaic, shall we? Mark does mention "hands" twice, but it's not because
he's dreaming of Vulcan's forge (we can only be glad Jesus never healed
anyone with a hammer and an anvil). Rather, the emphasis is on the
hands as "zones of interaction," as we have explained elsewhere:

The "hands and feet" bit has to do with one of three
"zones of interaction" recognized by anthropologists. Malina and
Rohrbaugh in their social science commentary on the Synoptics [356] note
that the hands and feet were a "zone of purposeful action" and "of
external behavior or interaction with the environment." It includes the
hands, feet, fingers, and legs. Thus the hands and feet are not
presented as evidence of crucifixion but as evidence of physical ability
to interact.

Of course, this is all a mountain out of an anthill by Thompson
in the first place; if indeed the historical Jesus had been out healing
people, and being a carpenter, the hands are the obvious instruments to
use; he is obviously not going to be sawing wood, hammering nails, or
performing healings with his toes, elbows, or glutes. As we noted in the
review, Thompson needs to learn Albert Lord's Lesson. The one thing he
does get right is that Mark is certainly being ironic by comparing the
deeds done by Jesus' hands. But all that about Hephestus is just plain
silly.

In other aspects, Thompson's presentation is, as in MM,
remarkably high on assertion and remarkably low on real argument. Bias
or trickery is seen under every rock; it is said of John's version, for
example, that John "is so committed to a Christian supersessionist
polemic against Jews that he freely compares the Jews negatively with
Samaritans, Galileans, and foreigners in support of the presentation of
Jesus as 'the savior of the world'. " Well, could it be that John is
committed to that polemic because it happens to represent a a certain
truth? That Jesus really is the savior of the world, offering a new
covenant to succeed the older? Nah, couldn't be. It's so obviously wrong
we don't even need to argue it, right? (And not so incidentally,
Thompson here hints at, but does not explicitly state, the usual error
of turning John into an anti-Semite; if he's under that illusion, he
needs the contextual clue that "Jews" = Judeans, not religious Jews.)

We also have Thompson up to his usual efforts of finding
"thematic elements" repeated from an older story to a newer one, and
using this to hint at ahistoricity; this is again a failure to learn
Lord's Lesson, so we need not take that aspect further. He also embarks
on a rather comparison of Mark's version of the story to that of Matthew
and Luke, and the Lesson applies just as well.
From there, there is a brief discussion of the "Quest for the
Historical Jesus." It is rather ironic for Thompson, as a fringe author,
to speak disparagingly of the "assumption of a historical Jesus" and
"unquestioning acceptance" of the historical Jesus as though it were
some sort of lunacy in itself. His own theory of imagined "motifs,
themes and tropes" (discussed, again, in the review of MM) is suppsoedly
providing the genius element all those other schoalrs are missing; they
are misunderstanding the "implicit functions of our texts." Yes indeed.
Alvin Boyd Kuhn felt the same way, didn't he? And he was no better at
providing evidence for his views, or arguments that were any less
circular than Thompson's.

As noted in the review of MM, Thompson's claims of "mythic and
theological representations" are little better than the same sort of
arguments produced by Acharya S. An unhealthy combination of imagination,
semantic machination (involving crashing two highly different
situations together by using vague, generalizing descriptions), and
selectivity is all that it amounts to, and it is simply an arbitrary
exercise that can be used to dehistoricize Lincoln as easily as Thompson
dehistoricizes Abraham, Moses, or Luke. It can even be used to
dehistoricize one of his own contributors, Robert Price (link below). Is
this not the fringe Bible scholar?

The intro closes with descriptions of chapters to follow, but we'll deal with those on their own terms in further entries.

Chapter 1 is by formerly prominent blogger Jim West, discusses
the phenomenon of "minimalism" in history. There is not much to address
here; West appeals to some of the typical canards common to those who
accuse the Gospels of historical error (including the rather strained
idea that Matthew and Luke put the "Sermon on the Mount" in entirely
different places). West uses this to argue that the Gospel authors were
themselves "minimalists" in reporting history. Here, however, West is
merely imitating the "higher critics" who don't even bother to look for
or evaluate solutions to these alleged problems, and simply opts for the
simplistic idea that such differences are best explained as efforts to
make esoteric "theological points." As with Thompson, such views require
more imagination than consideration.

Chapter 2 by Roland Boer is a historic survey looking back at the
work of David Strauss, Bruno Bauer, and Ludwig Feuerbach. I have read
Strauss alone of these three, and can certainly attest that he would fit
in well with the Thompson crowd: Like them, he owed much more to
imagination for his findings than practical consideration, and was well
versed at inventing problems either out of ignorance or thin air. In any
events, as little more than a "look back" at the history and roles of
these three authors, Boer's chapter contains nothing that concerns me.

Chapter 3 by Lester Grabbe is a brief survey of non-Christian
references to Jesus. It is naturally not as comprehensive as our own
treatment in
Shattering the Christ Myth, but does contain a handful of the
same points, and in general agrees with our own conclusions. Grabbe
apprently believes Jesus exists, so that he represent the reasonable
sector of INC.

Chapter 4 is little more than a historical survey/sermonette by
Niels Lemche, the point of which appears to be that 1) higher criticism
is wonderful; 2) even moderate like Willieam Dever are brainwashed by
their religious upbringing. If Lemche had an argument of any sort
intended to prove his points, he neglected to include it, and so there
is really nothing to address here; and if there were anything to
address, it would be difficult to find it among Lemche's
stream-of-consciousness meanderings.

Chapter 5 by Emmanuel Pfoh begins with the assumptions asserted
by Thompson -- that the Gospels are myths reflected by motifs, not
history ,and come of the "mythic mind" of ancient persons who, after
all, were too primitive to properly relate the difference to us clearly.
Pfoh relates a sort of agnosticism about a historical Jesus (he says
there "might have been a person" by that name). However, the essay
barely gets out of the realm of methodological survey otherwise; overall
it merely assumes, rather than arguing for, the Jesus of the Gospels as
a "mythic figure," and so contains nothing that can be seriously
addressed.

Chapter 6 by Robert Price asks the question of whether a
Christ-myth theory requires that the Pauline epistles be dated early.
Price uses the opportunity to resurrect some of his favored corpses
(like Raglan's theories), Since the date of Paul's epistles is the main
focus for Price, there is little else new here. Price is still
oblivious to the high-context nature of the NT world, and why that is a
reason why we would not, despite Price, think that Paul had "ample
occasion to revisit [materials about Jesus]" -- and here Price even
commits the profound error of drawing an analogy to a "modern preacher"
(from a low context society!). He also notes Dunn's similar argument
(without the knowledge of high context) that Paul's readers were
expected by him to recognize allusions to Jesus' teachings. Rather than
educate himself about high context societies, Price chooses a Monty
Python allusion in mockery ("wink, wink, nudge, nudge") and alleges that
it is merely an argument made to "wriggle out of a tight spot." He
asks, "Given the whole point of appealing to dominical words, who would
neglect to attribute them to explicitly to the name of Jesus?" Who
would? Members of a high context society, that's who.

Other than that, Price offers a survey of views by varied
outdated parties, including mythicists like Drews with no relevant
qualifications, and floats the trial balloon that Marcion was the author
of the Pauline epistles, and that Marcionite thought lies behind the
Gospels. This is accomplished via his usual taffy-pull method of
exegesis, to wit, on John's Gospel, which we will use as a sample.

John is Marcionite because "Moses and his Jews knew nothing of
God." That's a wacky statement that ought to get some significant
support, but here is all Price has to offer:

"Despite all that Deuteronomy says about Moses seeing God face
to face, John denies that any mortal has ever seen the true God." Price
is, as usual, oblivious to ancient idiom and too wedded to his former
fundamentalism; as we have noted in other contexts, "face to face"
simply means "on a personal level." It does not mean Moses "saw" God in
any form other than a hypostatic manifestation.

"Jesus' Father is not the same God the Jews worship." (8:54-5)
Oh? That makes John Marcionite? Then that also makes followers of
Artemis Marcionite. And followers of Zeus. And followers of Booga, Lord
of Road and Streets.

"All who came to the Jews before Jesus, presmably the Old
Testament prophets, were mere despoilers." (10:8) That "presumably" is a
failure. The reference is rather to those prior to Jesus with what
Price would call messianic pretensions -- people who presumed to broker
God's covenant grace -- or other false prophets of the same quality.

"The Father is unknown to the world," (17:25) Er -- yes. The
world had no covenant with the Father. Marcion may have believed this,
but so did the Jews.

"The Torah has nothing to do with grace and truth." (1:17) No, I have no idea how Price gets that out of John 1:17.

"Jesus raised himself from the dead (10:17-18)." Again, what makes this uniquely Marcionite? It isn't.
Chapter 7 by Mogens Muller will not detain us long, as Muller does
not adhere to the Christ-myth. He does, however, take for granted a
number of ridiculous and/or radical ideas (e.g., dating Luke's Gospel
120-30 AD!), and since he only does take these for granted rather than
arguing them, there is little to be engaged that is not conceptually
covered by what we have already noted.

Chapter 8 by Thomas Verenna is one we cannot pass by without
noting that Verenna was formerly known as Rook Hawkins of the Rational
Response squad. I would like to say that Verenna's scholarship has
improved since those days, but while he has become more adept at
assuming a scholarly tone, his ideas have not made the same graduation.
His chapter is one of the longest in INC, and is narrowly focussed on
Paul's "born under the law" description of Jesus in Galatians. Verenna
flies with the premise that Christians created history from texts, and
is apparently unaware that he has this precisely backwards; he only
briefly alludes to the idea, but merely dismisses it quickly as only
being a "suggestion based on a continuing trend of assumptions rather
than one founded on an unbiased investigation of the state of the
evidence." As the link below shows, that is simply false. This is no
mere "assumption" but a reality of the social world of the NT. Verenna's
lack of awareness here is so deep that though aware of the processes
used (e.g., imitatio), he nevertheless repeatedly gets the process
backwards.

However, in the end, although exceptionally verbose (especially
where Verenna reassures himself that his way of reading the texts really
isn't fringe nonsense which departs from the actual use of imitation
procedures), the chapter boils down to Verenna digging out past textual
echoes which he feels render "born under the law" into a non-historical
statement.

Especially laughable is Verenna's tendentious effort to beg for
the existence of an otherwise unknown, unattested Jewish acceptance of a
crucified, humiliated Messiah, which amounts to Verenna asking "how do
we know there weren't some that did accept such a thing" ten different
ways; appealing vaguely to diversity in views about the Messiah in
pre-Christian Judaism (while still failing to give any reason to expand
that diversity into the "crucified and humiliated" range), and picking
out texts like Ps. 22 that only Christians after Jesus related to a
crucified and humiliated Messiah.

If this sounds familiar to veteran readers, it should. Verenna
here is merely repeating the same arguments used by Richard Carrier in
response to my first point in The Impossible Faith. He even has
the temerity to use the figure on Inanna as an alleged crucified and
resurrected deity, which, as we have shown in reply to Carrier is also
false. In essence Verenna here simply repeats Carrier's errors while
either ignoring, or being unaware of, my responses.

Even more outlandishly, Verenna interprets Paul's profession to
have been "crucified with Christ" as an indication that the crucifixion
happened in the realm of myth. This is yet another example of what I
said to begin: It typifies a certain naivete found in fringe
scholarship, one in which absurd ideas are concocted to explain textual
phenomena because far more prosaic and contextualized interpretations
are either ignored, or more likely, are off the fringe writers' academic
radar screen. What is below Verenna's radar here is the social fact of
the collectivist mindset, wherein one's identity is rooted corporately
in an ingroup leader. This is what Paul means when he says he has been
crucified with Christ: Because he shares a collective, virtual identity
with Christ, he, too, has been crucified. Thus this statement does not,
as Verenna supposes, render the crucifixion non-historical.

Further on, Verenna simply chooses to ignore vast argument to the
contrary in rendering the "rulers of this age" in 1 Cor. 2 as heavenly
beings, and proceeds to argue as though it is proven that they are.

It gets even more outlandish, as Verenna reads Paul's report of
Jesus as of the seed of David, offering a false dilemma of only two
possible readings: 1) Jesus' mother was impregnated by a "celestial
seed" of David or 2) it is an allegory. What about it meaning Jesus was a
descendant of David? Verenna dismisses it because Paul doesn't include
more to satisfy Verenna, e.g., also naming Mary, or using the word
"descendant" -- although in fact neither of these is necessary, nor
shown to be by other appeals to Davidic remote lineage (e.g., Matt.
9:27).
Verenna similarly mistreats 1 Cor. 11:23 and the reference to
James as "brother of the Lord"; we need no treat those in detail
ourselves, as Verenna's analysis is not even to the depth of Earl
Doherty's on those passages, and so does not overcome our own replies to
Doherty. As strained as it becomes, Verenna points out that Luke
nowhere explicitly names James as Jesus' brother. This is true, but how
much is needed to connect the dots here?

Chapter 9 by James Crossley is on the topic of the historicity
of John, and so will not detain us for now when our concern is the
Christ-myth; we may return to it later.

From here there is nothing of substance to address that concerns
us. Chapter 10 by Thompson, and Chapter 11 by Ingrid Hjelm, are case
studies using Thompson's mystical motif methodology, in which the two
authors use varying degrees of hypercreativity to dig out motifs and
themes in the NT that mirror the OT. Chapter 12 by Joshua Sabih is about
Jesus in the Quran (!). Chapter 13 by K. L. Noll does not deal with the
issue of Jesus existing, but does demonstrate a level of insanity even
worse than that of Robert Price, as Noll applies Dawkins' outlandish
idea of memes to Christianity and makes up ridiculous arguments out of
thin air and paranoia (e.g., "...Matthew's Jesus seems to attack Paul
directly in Mt. 5:19 and 7:21.").

Thus it is that INC contributes little to the issue of Jesus'
historicity. The $100 price is better spent on a night at Outback
Steakhouse for four.